


Safe Place

by bluestargirl6 (pressdbtwnpages)



Category: Veronica Mars (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-01
Updated: 2010-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-08 14:05:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/76393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pressdbtwnpages/pseuds/bluestargirl6
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>[Veronica] picks up [Logan's] pieces more often than he would like to acknowledge.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Safe Place

  
Logan dials his assailant's cell phone with shaking fingers and almost hangs up when she answers.

"Hello? Who is this?"

He exhales painfully and sucks up his pride. "I need a ride."

There's something deeply wrong that Veronica is who he calls. That he was halfway through dialing her number before he realized who he was calling. She is his safe place and he cannot for the life of him figure out why.

"Logan?"

"You provide chauffeur services to other people?" He tries to rally, to bring the expected amount of banter. "I'm hurt."

"Well since you asked so nicely… no."

Logan wonders when it got to be a game. When they stopped being able to talk to each other. If they ever could.

"Veronica, please. Something happened."

"Where are you?" And that's why he calls Veronica. Why she is home base. Her cell phone is always on, she's always in town, and she will always come through as much as she may not want to.

"I'm not sure. PCH. Somewhere between out-of-town and Dog Beach."

"I'm on my way."

******

It's surprisingly cold. Or, not surprising for the beach in November, but surprising for lately. Logan's jacket isn't doing him much good. Maybe it's the events of this evening, that sheer terror makes you cold the way eating too much does.

Yeah. That's a fair analogy.

Logan climbs up the embankment he rolled down, it was a lot easier the other way. It always is. What goes down must come up, at least in Logan's world.

******

Logan wishes he couldn't remember ever being so glad to see Veronica Mars, but he can. A lot of times. She picks up his pieces more often than he would like to acknowledge.

"What happened?" Veronica asks, parking her car along the road's shoulder and getting out.

"Can we just go?" Logan requests, hand on the passenger door handle. He's tired and scared and he just can't keep his guard up enough as quality time with Veronica will entail.

"Sure," she assents easily, "just as soon as you tell me what you're doing stranded in the middle of nowhere with no car at 11 o'clock at night."

"I got dumped." Logan says succinctly.

"Dumped?" Veronica repeats, her brows furrowing. "I don't know what you boys see in Kendall Casablancas, but…"

"Not dumped. Dumped. Two bikers threw me out of a van." Logan clarifies, figuring it's easier to just confess and get it over with.

"And why were you in the back of some biker's van?" Veronica inquired, her tone pleasant, her eyes narrowed.

"I really don't know. You'd have to ask them." Logan mentions casually, flopping down into Veronica's passenger seat.

"You're shaking, Logan."

"It's cold."

"Not that cold. Tell me what happened." Veronica requests in a voice that would most appropriately be used in talking to scared animals. It isn't inappropriate here, Logan thinks wryly.

"Whatever happened to that whole 'no questions asked' 'don't ask don't tell' policy?" he attempts a last charge of what is a losing battle.

"I've never had that policy." Veronica kneels in front of Logan. "Are you okay? Because I've seen you freaked out before, but I've never seen you like this."

"I'm fine, Veronica."

"I don't believe you, Logan. I really don't."

"That's okay."

Veronica sighs in frustration and stands. "Fine. Where's your car?"

"My car?"

"You called me to pick you up and take you to your car," she elaborates.

"Actually I called and asked for a ride," Logan clarifies. Before he can talk himself out of it he asks, "Can I stay with you?"

"No." Veronica replies automatically, and then, "My dad's home. And in case you missed the memo, he hates the idea of you and me being in the same tri-state area, much less under the same roof. So I'm going to need a really good explanation for him."

"You're saying I can stay?" Logan asks, slightly awed.

"I'm saying you either need to tell me the truth or start coming up with a really excellent lie."

"Will 'I had a bad night' cover it?"

"You put too much faith in your inherited acting abilities."

******

The bizarre thing is "I had a bad night" actually works for the illustrious Keith Mars, and, apparently reading something in Logan's eyes not only grants him access to the Mars home but into Veronica's bedroom.

It worries Logan a bit, the explanations the Mars' seem to be accepting blindly tonight. If any family demands answers to every slightest circumstance, it's them. The desperation must be rolling off of him in waves for him to get a pass.

******

Veronica is putting the finishing touches on an air-mattress bed when Logan taps awkwardly on her doorframe.

"So, thanks for doing this."

Veronica just nods.

"Get some sleep, Logan," she instructs before turning off the lights and leaving the room to get ready for bed herself.

******

_The black mask is whipped off and the dark eyes condemning him belong to his father._

"You're guilty," Aaron states and raises the belt in his hand.

Logan struggles against his restraints and feeling the metal digging into his wrists realizes that they are belts too.

He screams.

"You," Aaron flicks the belt down like a whip, "killed", another strike, "your mother", the leather cracks towards him too fast to be seen, "and," another crack, "Lilly."

The belt stills at his father's side, "Do you deny it?"

"No! Oh God, no!"

******

A gentle hand on his shoulder wakes him. "Logan?"

"Uhng." He opens his eyes to dimming plastic stars stuck to ceiling.

"Are you okay?" Veronica asks.

Logan turns to look her and gets a vision of her knees, she's perched on the edge of her bed.

"Bad dream."

"I'd actually gotten that," Veronica notes. Logan feels bad that he's been awake for all of thirty seconds and he's already managed to annoy her. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Logan is silent. He really doesn't.

"Okay then. Good night."

******

_His mother is standing above him, clad in the black garments of his attackers. Her once beautiful face is bloated and tinged an unnatural shade of blue. Lilly stands behind her, blood dripping from her still-open head wound._

His mother points at herself, "Your Judge." She opens a cell phone and waves it at Logan, "your jury. And," she points at Lilly, "your Executioner."

Lilly is filing her fingernails.

"Ready?" Logan's mother speaks into the cell phone. She turns to her son. "Did you cheat on Lilly?"

"No!" Lilly glares from across the room, in the weird light her eyes seem to glow. "Yes. Sort of."

"Guilty," the voice on the telephone is audible, feminine and familiar.

Lilly, who is suddenly standing next to him, rakes one razor-sharp nail down his arm drawing blood.

"Did you cause Lilly's death?"

"No! I never wanted her to-" Logan falls silent at Lilly's glare.

"You just couldn't be enough for her, could you?" His mother accuses. "Wouldn't try just a little harder."

"Guilty," the voice sounds amused.

Lilly draws a line down Logan's chest with her fingernail, cutting away his shirt as she goes.

"Were you such a bad boy that you forced me to jump off of a bridge to escape you?"

Logan opens his mouth to deny it. To tell his mom that he loves her and misses her and wanted her to live, but the words won't come out.

"Guilty," harsh this time and painfully familiar. If she'd just say something else Logan knows he could identify her.

Lilly makes a slit in Logan's other wrist.

"Did you drug your best friend?" Logan's mother asks, shaking her head in disappointment.

"Guilty", Logan confesses quickly, before the person on the phone can judge him further.

This time Lilly jabs her fingernail into his bicep and watches the blood drip off as she pulls it out.

"Did you rape Veronica?"

"No!"

"Liar!" The voice exclaims angrily and Logan's heart stammers out of beat, it is Veronica. "Guilty."

Lilly's smirk is downright evil as she draws another line in blood across Logan's chest .

"Did you kill Felix? Set the community pool on fire? Rig a bus to explode and go over a cliff?" Logan's mother ticks the crimes off on her perfectly manicured fingers.

"No! No, no, no!"

"Guilty. Guilty. Guilty." Veronica sounds pleased.

Lilly comes towards him and caresses his cheek.

"Do you know what I am doing?" She asks, speaking for the first time. "I am cutting off your face."

******

Logan jerks upright in his bed, trying to catch his breath.

"Nightmare?" Veronica asks through a yawn.

"Slightly. You couldn't have woken me up from that?"

"Well you weren't screaming bloody murder like last time," Veronica informs him coolly, sitting up as well. "Look, I don't know what happened tonight and you clearly aren't planning on telling me, so…"

"If I talk about it I have to think about it and I'm not really a fan of that idea," Logan explains.

"You've had two nightmares in 45 minutes, how's that 'not-thinking-about-it' thing working for you?"

"It's only been 45 minutes?" It feels like hours have passed between each of his trials.

"Yeah. So, you sure you don't want to tell me about the dreams?" Veronica inquires, and Logan, being Logan, snaps back.

"Why do you want to know?"

"I don't. I want to be able to sleep."

"Sorry," Logan stands, feeling guilty and angry, his dream still fresh. "I'll go."

"No! Logan, wait, that isn't what I meant!" Veronica scrambles out of her bed and follows Logan to her doorway. "I worry about you sometimes."

"Well, stop." It seems like the easiest solution. Except, of course, that somewhere in the back of Logan's mind he really enjoys the thought of Veronica lying awake at night worrying over him.

"I will. As soon as you stop getting into trouble." Veronica bites her lip and hesitates. "This is why I broke up with you. I didn't want to have to worry anymore."

"It's hardly my fault Weevil and his little buddies have gotten a shiny new kidnapping-and-vigilantism hobby." He points out, annoyed at always being blamed.

"What?" Veronica unexpectedly slips her hand into Logan's. He doesn't know what the gesture is supposed to mean, but there it is.

"They interrogated me about Felix by playing Russian Roulette with my hand."

"Oh my God." Veronica presses herself into Logan's arms and he's not sure who she's comforting, him or herself. He supposes it doesn't really matter, but he kind of hates that it works regardless.

He shouldn't still need her, shouldn't still want her. It may be the least of his sins, but Veronica is his best friend's girlfriend. Logan has no right to be standing in her dark bedroom inhaling the scent of her hair and feeling his breathing calm.

She shouldn't be releasing him and tugging him towards her bed. He shouldn't be letting her. She is Duncan's girlfriend, and, he hates her.

"Get in," Veronica instructs, and Logan suspects that the dark is preventing her from seeing his confusion. Still, he obeys.

Veronica sits on the edge of the bed and strokes his hair. "Go to sleep, okay? I'll be here."

"You always are," he mutters and is not sure if it is out of gratitude or annoyance or something else entirely.

He's tired and she's safe, and her hand hasn't left his hair but she's crawling into bed next to him, curling by his side like a really big cat.

Logan can almost forget that he isn't holding his best friend's girl like a life preserver and that it wasn't her voice that pronounced him guilty.

He closes his eyes with a sigh and puts his faith in the tiny blond troublemaker next to him. If there any demons after him that she can't slay, well hell, then he probably deserves what he gets.


End file.
